Actress and movie producer, Yvonne Nelson, has openly expressed her dissatisfaction with attending Aggrey Memorial Secondary School (SHS) after completing junior high school.

She described her experience as "bad” during an interview on The Career Trail program on Joy Learning TV and Joy News.

The actress revealed that her decision to attend Aggrey Memorial was influenced by her stepfather, who served as the PTA Chairman at the time; she had no choice but to go to the school.

“My step-dad was the PTA Chair. So it was like when you are done with JSS, you are definitely going to Aggrey Memorial.

"That’s what happened to me. I didn’t have any choice. I just knew that I would go there anyway, and it was bad; I don’t have great memories of Aggrey Memorial. It wasn’t the best of places for me,” she shared.  

She mentioned that one of the major reasons Yvonne disliked the school was being coerced into studying a subject she had no interest in.  

"I was coerced, pushed, and forced to do Accounting. I wasn’t interested in all the calculations and all of that. So then, I didn’t have any interest in studying,” she explained.

To make matters worse, the actress spoke about the harsh disciplinary methods employed by some teachers, particularly the use of corporal punishment. She explained that the teachers’ frequent use of caning created an environment of fear that affected her studies.

“There were days you were afraid to go to the class because one teacher is going to beat everybody in the class. That wasn’t helping,” she revealed.

According to her, the constant fear of being punished contributed to her struggles during the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE), particularly in the subjects she was forced to study.

“At a point when we were writing our SSCE, I did not go in when we were writing Costing and Accounting. It was that bad. What was I going to write? I didn’t like it. Our teacher was always beating us up and I was always skipping classes. What was I going to write? I cannot balance the sheet,” she said. 

Comparing the tutors at Aggrey with her coach for the NOVDEC, she mentioned that her personal coach helped her to understand the subjects because he wasn’t using cane and that made her understand the course better and came out with flying colors.

“I had one very good man. He took me through gently. I wasn’t afraid anymore, so I took my time and I realized that it was something I can do,” she said. 

Yvonne also spoke about the poor quality of food at Aggrey Memorial, which further contributed to her dissatisfaction with the school. 

“I don’t know what is happening now in Senior Secondary Schools, but I feel like we need to talk about these things. If we don’t talk about it, it will continue being the same. We talk about it, it may change.

"The food was terrible, like terrible. You wouldn’t want your child to eat that kind of food. It should be nutritious. The conditions and the way they were prepared were really horrible,” she said.

In addition to the food, Yvonne pointed out the school's poor hygiene, which made her time there even more unpleasant. “Aggrey was a nightmare”, she concluded.